A Real Princess
by GlitterPen
Summary: James reflects on the incidents of Princess vs. Princess. Now he sees Jessie in a whole new light. Very Rocketshippy


**A Real Princess**

_Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters and I stand to make no profit from this._

James stood looking out over the river in the late afternoon. He'd wanted to be alone and left the group to come down here. The sun was low in the sky, beginning to cast a golden tint to the river and trees. James stood looking out at it all but not really seeing any of it, lost in his own thoughts as he was.

What had changed, he wondered to himself. Hadn't he seen her every day for a couple of years now? She was just his teammate, after all, just someone with whom he had been assigned to do a job.

Just his teammate, he reminded himself as he leaned over to pick up a small stone and skim it over the surface of the water.

The idea of stopping for the ridiculous Princess Festival had rankled him at first. But then it looked like they might actually have a chance to trick those annoying kids, maybe finally even catch that Pikachu themselves.

That's all it was supposed to have been, nothing more. Then she had gone and joined the contest to win that set of dolls. He had grumbled to himself - how many sad, little flashbacks to her pathetic childhood was he going to have to suffer through? He should have just bought her a set of those stupid dolls. It would have been a lot easier. Then he wouldn't have had to see her. like that.

The curtain had lifted and he'd scanned the line of girls appreciatively. There were quite a few attractive ones in the group. He was thinking that maybe there would be something in this for him after all when his gaze had landed on the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. She was absolutely gorgeous, standing tall and regal in her formal dress, golden tiara upon her head. Her face looked made of the finest porcelain, framed by a blaze of red hair, her own gaze was lowered demurely. Shyly, it seemed, she lifted her own gaze out to the audience and her ice-blue eyes met his.

Electricity. To James it felt as if there had been a stunning bolt of electricity between them. Jessie? JESSIE? That was JESSIE?

Most of the rest of the pageant had been a blur. There may have been other girls up there, but he only had eyes for her. He had watched every graceful movement she made on the stage; heard her answers to every ridiculous pageant question she was asked. How could those judges be so blind he had wondered. No other girl up there could possibly compare with her - why didn't they just end the contest then and give her the damned dolls?

James had snapped out of it when he had heard that there was to be a Pokemon battle between the contestants. Well, this was certainly odd for a beauty pageant, but at least it would give him a chance to see her in a more normal light. After all, didn't they have Pokemon battles almost every day? He and Meowth teamed up on the sidelines to be her faithful cheerleading squad.

God he had been thankful that sunglasses were part of that costume get-up. The darker, the better he had thought to himself. He couldn't take his eyes off of her. He tried to watch the battle, tried to offer encouragement, but all he could think about was how beautiful she was and how stupid he was for never noticing it before.

He wanted to tangle his fingers in her hair, wanted to have his arms around her warm waist. He wanted to.

Scream.

NO!

She had lost!

She had lost and her face was the most beautiful, tragic, haunting image he would ever see. She had looked like a little girl lost and he wanted to hold her in his arms forever. He had started toward her, but she had had her back to him when he heard her sigh deeply as she just gathered up her Pokeballs and left to head back to their camp.

The costumes had been Meowth's idea. James had hesitated at first, he didn't want it to seem as if they were making fun of something that had obviously been so important to her. Just that fact alone made him wince to think about it now. Was he growing a conscience? Wasn't he supposed to be a spoiled little rich boy? Why not make a joke out of it all at her expense? After all, pretty girls were a dime a dozen to a guy like him. As recently as one day ago that's how he would have felt; that's what he would have done.

Not now. And Meowth had told him it would work, that it would cheer her up so reluctantly he had given in. and thanked the heavens that he had done so.

If the look on her face when she had lost had been beautifully haunting it was nothing compared to the beauty of her smile when she had seen them. That smile was nothing less than blindingly radiant; it was genuine and unreserved delight at seeing them all in their costumes. James looked up at the lowering sun as it cast glorious golden beams all around him.

"Good, you should lower your head in shame," he whispered to the sun, "because there's someone who outshines you."

He leaned and picked up another rock to skim it, too, over the water, watching the ripples as they spread out. Hadn't he just chided her earlier today for needless flashbacks? And what was he out here, doing himself, but a maudlin flashback of his own?

One thought still nagged at him - had she smiled for him, or for all of them? Was he just another team member to her? Or she had felt something, too, today? Something different?

He had wanted to be alone. Untrue. He had wanted to be alone with her. The Pokemon were all in their Pokeballs except for Meowth, whom he'd asked to go into town for supplies. He had wanted to be alone with her in camp, had arranged things so that he could be alone with her in camp. and then he had left camp himself.

What if she said she didn't feel anything for him? What if he made a fool out of himself? What if.?

He heard a crackle and looked up to see her, further down the riverbank. She was looking across the river herself, she had not noticed him yet. He inhaled sharply. God, she was so beautiful. The setting sun framed her hair, which seemed to blaze on it's own. She seemed a goddess, alighting from heaven to step foot on earth in a cloud of brilliance.

Grow a spine, be a man, he chided himself inwardly. It wouldn't be so hard, to just go down there and tell her how he felt, would it? Then he heard a faint sob. He peered down at her. Was she crying?

"Jessie?" he called out softly to her. "Jessie, are you all right?"

She looked up in surprise and then quickly looked away. "I'm fine. Really, I am," she answered in a somewhat shaky voice as James walked down the hill to join her.

"I thought you were crying," he continued.

"Whyever would you think that?" she answered, struggling to sound as haughty as she normally did. In the evening light he could see the traces the tears had left on her cheeks.

"I'm sorry about the dolls," he added. God, his hands ached to stroke her hair, to put a hand on her shoulder, around her waist, anything to touch her just now.

She made a motion with her hand as if brushing something away, but he knew she'd reached to wipe another tear from the corner of her eye. "The d- dolls? Oh, that silly little contest. It meant nothing, really," she said with a catch in her voice. She bit on her lower lip, her eyes open wide to hold back the tears and then she quickly looked away again. She couldn't stand the thought of James seeing her like this just now, knowing how he would tease her over something as trivial as that set of dolls.

"I'm really very sorry, Jessie, and I wanted you know that I think you should have won. That whole contest, I mean it, you should have won. You were the most beautiful girl there."

Jessie looked back at him. She hadn't realized he was standing so close to her. She looked in his eyes and caught her breath. She'd never seen such a soft, understanding look in James' eyes before. Could it possibly be that James felt something for her? She'd always secretly harbored a crush for him, but tried not to let it show. She couldn't risk letting it get in the way of their work or worse yet, risk allowing him to know how she felt, only to discover that he did not share the same feelings.

But this afternoon, after the pageant - to see him in that formal costume, it was such a touching gesture. He *did* care about her, at least at some level. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for her in her entire life. And it was James. James, of all people, was the one who had been that considerate of her feelings. It was too much to ask that he could possibly care for her as more than a teammate or a friend. Wasn't it?

She'd come down to the river to be alone with her thoughts. And now she found him looking at her with a softness in his eyes that she would never have expected.

"T-thank you, James," she stammered, "t-that's very nice of you to say."

James took his hand and cupped her face at her cheek, his fingers touching her crimson hair at last. "I'm not just saying it, Jessie, I mean it. You were the most beautiful girl there." He held her face in both hands now and looked at her steadily. "You're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen."

Jessie's heart was thundering in her chest. She couldn't say anything, she just looked at him with a searching expression in her eyes.

James smiled slightly at her. He raised his hands gently away from her face, lifting her hair, feeling the wonderful, liquid weight of it, as it slipped and slid through his fingers and curtained around her face. "I've been thinking about doing that all day," he whispered as he continued to stroke her hair, letting the silky strands trail through his hands again and again.

"James, I-I-I don't know what to say," Jessie whispered.

James took her chin in one hand, and tipped her face up, then leaned forward to kiss her. His lips brushed against hers. "You don't have to say anything," he whispered back.

He kissed her again, more firmly this time. Hesitantly, Jessie raised her own hands and circled her arms about his neck. She stepped into his embrace. James cradled the back of her head with one hand and wrapped his other arm around her slim waist to hold her close. When he felt the warm satin of her skin at her waist under his hand, James gave a silent prayer of thanks to whoever had designed her outfit.

James broke the kiss and looked at her. The sun had fully set by now and he was holding the most beautiful girl in the world in his arms in the twilight. He couldn't begin to describe how wonderful it felt to have her body molded against his, warm and willowy in the evening light, stars in her eyes.

"James," Jesse began, "what if this isn't a good idea?"

He kissed her again, softly and sweetly, "I think that for once we have the best idea in the world."


End file.
